JUST GOODCUPCAKES

The finished vegan maple bacon cupcakes sit on a cooling rack after being topped off with a crisped coconut shavings that give a crunchy texture to complete the cupcake. Different flavors that Amanda Reninger cooks can be sampled at The Caffinery where she sells them individually, or can be bought by the dozen through her company Sea Salt & Cinnamon.(Photo: Corey Ohlenkamp/The Star Press, Corey Ohlenkamp/The Star Press)Buy Photo

eople become inspired to start new businesses by any number of things, but Amanda Reninger's inspiration may, pardon the pun, take the cake.

Credit her husband's liver.

Now she is the owner of Sea Salt & Cinnamon, a bakery specializing in vegan cupcakes, the making of which precludes the use of meat, eggs or dairy products.

"There's nothing that comes from an animal," she explained, while admitting to making a mean maple bacon cupcake.

How so? This all started a couple of years ago when Kyle Reninger was diagnosed with a liver disorder that prohibited him from processing animal products. Required to embrace a vegan diet, Amanda joined him. There was just one problem.

"I had no idea what eating vegan was," said the 28-year-old entrepreneur.

She soon learned, however, researching the vegan way of food preparation. These days, while she will occasionally eat fish, Kyle remains more of a stickler for the diet, something that has definitely paid off for him.

"He's been totally cured," Amanda said. "His liver disorder is fine."

As she spoke, she was in the pristine commercial kitchen at Inside Out (she has since moved to the Forest Park Senior Citizens Center kitchen), which she rents six times a week to make vegan cupcakes, which are then sold downtown at The Caffeinery coffee shop. With ingredients on the counter including maple syrup, brown sugar and Kahlua coffee liqueur, she methodically mixed her batter, spooned it into cupcake cups, slid a tray of them into the oven, then set about making her frosting.

Since she was wearing sandals, you couldn't help but notice a tattoo of musical notes scattered across a few bars of music on the arch of one foot.

With Amanda and Kyle both from the Tampa area, she came here to earn her bachelor's and master's degrees in music from Ball State University. Besides working at Lucky Rabbit, where she schedules tattoo sessions, she also works as a cantor singing at Temple Beth El, and is active singing in her own church, The Gathering, as well.

"I've always had a lot of interests, so doing music full time at some point in the future is something I'd definitely like to do," said the red-haired soprano, who went through numerous pairs of disposable plastic gloves during her baking session.

For now, though, if she can earn a living baking, that will be just fine.

In the kitchen this morning, she was making her aforementioned vegan maple bacon cupcakes, using a jar full of dark coconut shavings that looked like crumbled bacon, and even sort of tasted like crumbled bacon. For milk, she used soy milk, and for the effect of eggs she mixed soy milk with flax seed. Mixing soy milk with apple cider vinegar imitated the flavor of buttermilk, she added.

Once the cupcakes came out of the oven and cooled, she ladled the thick, cream-colored frosting into a piping bag and squeezing it, thickly covered them, then drizzled them with vegan caramel sauce before sprinkling the "bacon" chunks on top.

"I'm often told it's the best cupcake I've ever had," Amanda said of customers' reaction to her goods. "If people weren't told there's something different about it, they wouldn't know the difference."

Having long baked cupcakes for friends, starting Sea Salt & Cinnamon seemed a natural career progression.

"I knew I was good at baking, so I needed to do this ... but it was kind of a slow thing," she said of the process. "I started getting calls from other people who were friends of friends (wanting cupcakes)."

When The Caffeinery's owners, Frank and Lauren Reber, wanted to stock her cupcakes, it was the incentive she was looking for.

"Their interest in my product was probably the last kick I needed," Amanda said. "It was time to pull the trigger, finally. The goal is that people will go to The Caffeinery to see what they like, then order directly from me."

Her big-sellers there for the summer months include lemon-basil and lemon-blueberry cupcakes with fresh fruit frosting, which will become, say, pumpkin or chocolate-mint ones as fall arrives, then yields to winter. She also offers gluten-free cupcakes.

"Everything we do is always going to be vegan," Amanda said, "and it can be made gluten-free."

But while she is happy to hype the benefits of vegan and gluten-free baking, she is anxious that the delicious truth not be lost in the mix.

"Yeah, they're all this," Amanda said of the attributes noted above, "but they're also just good cupcakes."